Mental health problem is a phenomenon that can affect anyone irrespective of status, age, nationality, etc. If someone like an executive is struggling with mental health issues in the workplace, it can be bad for them, and the business.

Therefore, learning how to identify mental health problems is instrumental to providing people suffering from them with help. Here are some of the signs that tell you that an executive has a mental health issue.

Unhealthy/rough appearance

One of the ways to tell that mental health problem is at play in an executive’s life is when they have a rough and unhealthy appearance. You might notice that their hygiene habits will decline gradually, particularly because they pay less attention to how they look.

Mood swings

Executives with mental health problems are likely to experience mood swings which can cause problems between them and their colleagues.

They will experience inconsistent emotions that might seem unusual or strange. Similarly, you will notice that they are easily angered, frustrated, or irritated for little or no reason.

Decrease in productivity

Another sign that tells the presence of a mental health problem is when their productivity is not up to expectations.

You will notice that the executive may be unable to meet up with work-related tasks, and this is largely due to a lack of focus or concentration. They might spend several hours on a particular task, which might cause a strain on their overall output.

Isolation from social situations

Executives struggling with mental health problems are likely to distance themselves from people any time they have the chance.

You may notice that they will become withdrawn for no reason and that they will begin to treasure their personal space so much. They might begin to complain of loneliness even when they have people around them.

Substance abuse

Some executives who are struggling with mental health problems might want to self-medicate, and in the process, they experiment with drugs and alcohol. In the long run, they abuse these substances to the point where they become addicted to them.

Executives and top professionals live a high-paced and demanding life. They are always on the move, travelling across continents, attending meeting, preparing one document or the other. More frequently, it is about working across different time zones and getting available 24/7.

This constant demand to work and work can wear out an executive. And in this time when physical health and mental health are important, a top professional cannot afford to not care for his/her health. If you don’t care for your health, you end up breaking down and work suffers for longer periods.

Therefore, it is vital that executives care for their health. So, here are few tips to help top professionals and executive care better for their health, even while working at an optimal level.

• Don’t Skip Breakfast

Ensure you have a healthy breakfast every morning because this makes you energize for some hours. Learn also to pack a healthy lunch and eat healthy snacks in-between meals. This helps you to maintain your energy level.

• Don’t Go Long Hours Without Sleep

To perform at a top level at work, you need your mind to be sharp and your senses acute. You can’t do this is your grumpy with constant headaches and uneasy feelings. Don’t go for days without sleep, or sleep few hours for long period.

Take time to sleep properly 7-8 hours. As this helps your mind refresh, and you can think and perform better at work.

• Maintain Social Connections

Don’t get caught up in work that you lose your social connections. Social connections help to reduce feelings of anxiety or depression. Take company social events, talk to employees beyond work related things. Maintain that social connection.

• Manage Stress

Working as an executive or top professional comes with its stress. So, while you work take out time to de-stress so that you do not get overwhelmed. You can take some minutes from work to relax physically and mentally, this helps to keep you calm.

• Exercise

As an executive you’re always on the move, travelling or attending meeting. Or you’re always behind a desk or laptop working. To care for your health do daily exercises, this can encourage your staff to see fitness as a priority. Go for midday walks or jogs, or have walking meetings, which help to circulate blood flow.

In summary, these are ways an executive or top professional can remain healthy while having top performance at work. Health is important and should not be neglected for anything else. Also, when your staff see your prioritizing health, it causes them to do same, creating a healthy workplace.

Executives live a very stressful and demanding life. There are work deadlines to meet, staff to handle, frequent meetings now and then, client communication, job evaluation,  quotas, and so on. All these can become pressing, coupled with any possible stress from home or with family.

This stress and highly demanding life can cause an executive to rely on drugs or alcohol to get through a day.

With alcohol, it is much easier for executives to get addicted to, because meetings often involves drinking with partners or potential clients. So, drinking can become an everyday habit, one which suddenly develops into dependency of alcohol to get through the day.

An executive could also get addicted to medications prescribed for stress-relief or headaches, and the constant use of these would lead to addiction. Spotting addiction on executives isn’t so easy as it can be hidden under the suits and high-class. But here are some signs that says an executive is addicted.

• Missed Deadlines

An addicted executive may begin to miss important deadlines, forget meetings, and miss quotas. When all these begin to happen suddenly and unexplainably, it could be a sign of addiction. The executive’s performance begins to drop and he/ she doesn’t seem to care about the output of his/ her staff anymore.

• Deplete Physical State

He/she stops coming to work looking sharp neat. Their hair becomes unkempt, rumpled clothes and so on. They start to ignore their physical appearance.

• Outburst

There could be regular outburst of angry by the executive either on staff or clients. This uncharacteristic action could be a sign of addiction in an executive.

• Physical Signs of Alcohol or Drugs

The executive can also come to work with visible signs of alcohol or drug addiction. That is, alcohol in his/her breath, dilated pupils and so on. These physical will confirm that an executive is an addict.

• Regular Absence

The addicted executive begins to be absent from work, miss meetings, have long lunch breaks, come in late and leave early. These movements are often frequent and his/her whereabouts is often unknown, as they become secretive about their location.

In summary, executives are not immune from addiction, but are more prone to drug or alcohol addiction due to the stressful nature of their job. But there are specific treatment centres which tailor to the needs of addicted executives. So, these signs are vital in identifying addiction in executives.

The reason why an executive rehab was situated is to cater for the addiction and mental health needs of public leaders, executives, top-professionals, chief executive officers and a host of others.

So, an executive rehab gives a special form of treatment to the categories of people mentioned above.

Of course, this is expected because of the huge amount they have to pay to foot their bills at the rehab. A good number of things would be monitored at an executive rehab, their diet, sleep schedule, exercise and a host of others.

One of the reasons why an executive rehab is great, is the attention given to each clients. As expected, the clients at an executive rehab would be less than those at a conventional rehab.

So, the therapist has more time to spend with a client and most sessions are usually very productive.

Also, an executive rehab affords a top professional the chance to meet with another professional in another field. The game of networking in an executive rehab is strong and this is why most executives look forward to another session at a rehab.

At an executive rehab, the therapists, counselors and medical personnel are very skilled and qualified.

Some of them are highly sought after all over the world, so they might be involve with three to four rehabs at once. These individuals ensure that their clients receive the best of care and treatment possible.

Owing to the fact that they are in the public eye, it is important that they are shielded from the criticisms that come with addiction or even mental health problem.

Executives are humans who are susceptible to addiction and mental health problems. And the fact that they are at high-ranking positions means that they are more vulnerable than other individuals.

Executives who are addicted or have mental health problems, are advised to take treatment seriously. It is important that they do not bring their company crashing down because of their inability caused by the addiction or mental health problem.

Addicted executives are individuals at the helm of affairs that are held down by any form of addiction- behavioral or substance addiction.

One fact people need to know is, before they became executives, they were first humans, and after becoming executives, they remained humans. So, looking at the concept of addiction, you can be addicted irrespective of your status.

This is why you would hear some people say “Addiction is no respecter of persons.” If you do not do the right thing, there is a strong chance that you would be addicted. Now, we know that executives are saddled with the overseeing the progress of a business, brand or company.

Hence, this means that when employees on the lower cadre are resting, executives are brainstorming on how to move the company forward.

This is one of the challenges that comes with being an executive, all eyes are on you for great results and you dare not let them down because they can lose trust in you.

So, executives would do all within their power to make sure that they do not disappoint. In the process, some of them become addicted, and this happens as a result of stress.

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Most executives are greatly stressed and they become addicted in the process. But, as executives, they cannot imagine the idea of being seen at a regular rehab where other regular people come to.

This is why executive rehabs exists; structured and fashioned strictly for executives. An executive rehab is more expensive than a regular rehab, and this is no problem for an executive or public leader.

They have the means to foot the expenses. The level of operation and the service delivery at an executive rehab is top-notch and cannot be compared to a regular rehab.

At an executive rehab, executives would associate with other executives there and this often provides a chance to network. So, with an executive rehab, top professionals can come in for treatment and go back to their place of work like nothing happened.

Professionals are more likely susceptible to come down with addictions than other set of people, and this is due to the fact that they are more stressed out due to the nature of their work. These set of people earn more than a good part of the populace, hence, it is expected that they would be exposed to more work hazards than the rest.

Most times, the success of the company lies in the hands of a professional. This implies that the individual has to give all it takes to ensure that the company does not fold up. This is part of many reasons why they would stay back for more hours after the usual working hours to go through the company’s financial status.

This is one of the major reasons why a good number of them usually come down with addiction, because they do not know how to handle their stressed state. Some of them usually take to either drugs or alcohol as a means to ensure that their stress level steps down. In the long run, they realize that they cannot do without it, and hence, they are hooked on it.

Now, it is unusual for you to see a professional who would own up to the fact that he is addicted, and it can be understood that it is done for the best of reasons. These set of people serve as mentors or role models to their subordinates, hence, it would be disadvantageous if any of them gets to find out that the people who they look up to, are quite worse than themselves.

Therefore, the professional makes firm efforts to ensure that no one gets to discover about the addiction, as they ensure it is well managed. With time, different changes begin to occur, and it becomes clear to the rest of the workers that something is wrong with their boss.

Professionals are advised that when they are down with addiction, the first step to defeating it, is to admit that they have an addiction. The next step would be to try out executive-rehab centres instead of the conventional ones, as these private ones are well-suited and structured for professionals and executives alone.

Overtime, people view addiction as a disease that affects only the poor and for those who are homeless, without money and have little or no resources to cater for themselves. However, they fail to know that addiction is a virus that affect anybody notwithstanding the status, whether poor or rich, old or young. It can take a toll on people from all walks of life even the affluent and wealthy in the white collar zone.

Surprisingly, it is possible for an addict to still remain active and effective at work while they are immersed in addiction particularly at the early stages but it would not be long before they start feeling the effect of the addiction on their performance level. People who are wealthy and work in white collar jobs are seen as upright and admirable. The fact is that they are also susceptible to the abuse of substances like drugs and alcohol probably due to the demand of their jobs.

White collar addicts have the ability to still remain functional at work and other responsibilities despite their state of addiction. They are capable of performing their work duties well while faced with issues of addiction even without their fellow colleagues being aware of what they are going through.

Many white collar addict do not quickly understand the need to seek therapy because they feel they are normal since they can still carry out their office work effectively. They become aware of the need for help when they enter into a state of withdrawal.

Also, since they are financially stable and efficient to keep acquiring the drugs or substance they abuse, they don’t see the need to quit and seek assistance. They remain enslaved to the grip of addiction. It takes time for them to reach the rock bottom than those who are poor and financially incapable.

However, gradually the addiction requirement becomes more expensive than ever that even their huge and high status salary would not be sufficient. Not forgetting many of this white collar addicts have other responsibilities apart from work and these responsibilities comes with financial obligations.

Failure to fund the addiction needs could lead to the white collar addicts engaging in crime and other illegal activities. Due to their status and function in the society, their crimes might not easily be noticed and they are likely to get away with it but once their crimes are finally discovered they become jeopardized.